A new law increasing career senior executives' financial disclosure requirements already is having "a chilling effect" on recruitment and retention and those requirements should be repealed, leaders of the Senior Executives Association have told Congress.

Many career Senior Executive Service members "are considering retirement or falling back to a GS-15 in light of the new rules," SEA President Carol Bonosaro and General Counsel William Bransford wrote in a letter to the House and Senate government oversight committees. At the same time, many employees at the upper levels of the General Schedule are abandoning plans to join the SES, they said.

The association, which represents career SES members, released the April 13 letter on Tuesday; Bransford is also a Federal Times columnist.